After a tough spell in the Octagon, former lightweight title contender Gray Maynard is looking to reignite his career by dropping down to the featherweight division.
According to Maynard making weight isn’t as much of an issue for him as has been made out in the past and given the fact that he’s been walking around at about 160-162lbs lately has led him to believe that a cut to 145lbs makes sense.
There’s no doubt Maynard had to change things up one way or another as the 35 year-old’s record over the past few years makes for grim reading with just a win and a draw to show from his last seven Octagon appearances, with four of his losses coming by way of strikes.
For a man who’d gone 11 fights unbeaten prior to that it’s troubling to see how far he’s fallen, but rather than looking to hang up his gloves ‘The Bully’ believes he’s still got something to offer.
“I want to keep going,” Maynard told MMAfighting.com. “I feel great. It’s just, again, getting that flow of training and camp. That’s been kind of the whole issue, just getting my flow back in training. If you’ve got your flow in training, you’ve got it in competition.”
Speaking directly to the question marks regarding his chin these days, Maynard says that talk that he can’t take a punch anymore has been overplayed and believes that he’s been sensible about the way he’s recovered from the technical knockouts he’s experienced.
“On the TKOs I never got completely stiffed,” Maynard said. “I never had symptoms of headaches and all that stuff [afterwards]. I was very cautious about taking time off and people kind of criticized all the time I’ve had off. It’s just I want to be sure that the brain is beyond healed. I got dropped in that last fight and I’m just kind of getting back into sparring now. I’m just being very careful with my body.”
Maynard is now targeting a return to action In March, almost a year since a unanimous decision loss to Alexander Yakovlev, though his first opponent at 145lbs is yet to be confirmed.
